Not every star player saw extended time during Ohio State's open practice as part of Student Appreciation Day on Saturday. Urban Meyer and his staff do this to keep their best players out of harm's way with spring drills winding down.
The annual spring game is a week away. Saturday provided another scrimmage opportunity for the youth in the program to show their coaches why they deserve to see the field this fall.
Here are five players that stood out on Saturday.
Dwayne Haskins
The redshirt freshman quarterback has a cannon. He threw a few touchdown passes — one to Luke Farrell from roughly 30 yards out and another to K.J. Hill in the red zone part of practice — and commanded the offense.
Haskins appears to be in a dead heat competition with Joe Burrow for the right to backup J.T. Barrett. Haskins and Burrow both rotated through with the first and second-team offenses. The former connected on many nice throws (Burrow did too) but also had more than a few dropped by his receivers. In any event, Haskins showed why Meyer is so excited about his future.
Dante Booker
Ohio State is hurting for linebackers right now with Baron Browning and Malik Harrison both out for spring due to injury so Booker got first and second-team reps during Saturday’s practice. He played a ton of snaps.
He picked off Joe Burrow in the end zone during part of the scrimmage and was around the ball quite frequently when Ohio State opted to run it. Booker is the most physically imposing of the three starting linebackers. He’s big and built rock solid and runs rather fast for someone that size.
Eric Glover-Williams
The converted wide receiver is by no means big but man, he is quick. He caught a few bubble screens from the slot and also made a few grabs up the seam. In the live portion of practice, it was pretty rare for Glover-Williams to get taken down by the first defender that came near him. He usually made them miss.
Ohio State is desperately looking for someone to replace the dynamic Curtis Samuel at H-back. Parris Campbell leads at the spot and Meyer considers him his top receiver right now. But Glover-Williams should be involved in the offense in some capacity this fall.
Isaiah Pryor
With Jordan Fuller in an orange non-contact jersey and Damon Webb’s reps limited, freshman early enrollee Isaiah Pryor saw plenty of snaps Saturday and really flashed with a few nice plays. He made a couple of nice tackles in run support and broke up a deep pass down the sideline intended for Austin Mack.
Not sure he’ll see much safety action this fall, but him getting second-team reps this spring signals the staff is awfully high on him and it’s easy to see him being a special teams contributor when the season rolls around.
Luke Farrell
Another redshirt freshman — one of three tight ends in Ohio State's 2016 recruiting class — Farrell looks like the second tight end this spring behind A.J. Alexander (Marcus Baugh is out after an offseason shoulder procedure). Farrell cemented that position on Saturday with multiple touchdown grabs.
His first one came from Haskins on a tight end flag route and the second from Tate Martell in the back of the end zone. Both were strikes from the quarterbacks that Farrell caught nicely. Both times, he finished the play. We haven't seen much of him so far in his career but he certainly stood out on Saturday.
